The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 334: Preparation

“Dad, tell him!”

“Oh, I will!” His father shot him a glare without heat. “Son, why didn’t you tell us about your girlfriend? That’s your mistake! Bring her home for a meal tomorrow. You hear me?”

“Dad!” Gao Xinxin was ready to stomp on the floor.

“Ah, Dad, Mom...” Gao Yang seized the chance to give them the cover story he had spent quite some time on. “The day after tomorrow, Wang Zikai is going to train at a club.”

“Club?” Although his mother had come to see Wang Zikai in a different light, she still had a healthy distrust in him. “What club?”

“An e-sport club,” Gao Yang explained. “He plays quite well, and a club took notice and asked him to join as a professional player. Still, he had to go through a one-week training and trial period, and he asked me to keep him company since I played games with him a lot.”

Gao Yang felt a little guilty. Me and Wang Zikai? We’ll be better off massaging the players’ hands. I won’t even joke about us playing professionally. Still, my family doesn’t know anything about games.

“Sure.” His father didn’t think too much of it and continued to eat the noodles. “Go keep Little Kai company. It’s good for a young man to have a dream.”

“That’s what I think too. We’ve been under his care during the few days we spent in Naldives. I’ll consider this repayment for that.” Gao Yang smiled. “But it’s an isolated training that’ll last a week.”

His mother looked up at him fiercely. “So you won’t be home for the next week?”

Gao Yang nodded. “The club will provide the food and accommodation. You don’t have to worry, Mom.”

His mother didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t say otherwise.

Gao Yang quickly took out his phone. “Look, Mom. This is the club.”

All his family leaned in to look at the phone screen.

“Wow, not bad.” His father was the first to show support.

And the club did exist, and it had been training a group of young players. It was just that Wang Zikai had nothing to do with it.

Nevertheless, Gao Yang had edited the contact information to ones of the administrative department of the Qilin Guild. There would be professionals answering the calls even if his mother did call to ask questions.

If they wanted to act, they had to make it believable. And Gao Yang would be staying with a wanderer, Wang Zikai, making him much less likely to rouse suspicion.

Of course, there was no perfect excuse, but it was the best Gao Yang could come up with.

“I’ll agree if everyone else does.” Finally, his mother relented.

Gao Yang sighed in relief. His mother was the hardest to convince. Once she gave her agreement, the others would follow.

“Dad?” Gao Yang asked.

His father had always been supportive. “Go, Son. Don’t worry.”

“Sis?”

“I don’t care.” And she didn’t seem to care.

Gao Yang turned to his grandmother. “Granny?”

“Hoho, why would granny disagree?”

“Aren’t you worried that I’d do something bad?” Gao Yang asked with a smile.

“I’m not. I trust Yang Yang. Yang Yang is the goodest boy.”

I’m sorry, Granny.

—Activate Lie Detection.

The target didn’t lie, and she was benevolent.

Gao Yang let out a sigh in relief. Thank God. It seems that Granny doesn’t suspect me either.

During the two months since Gao Yang’s awakening, he had once held onto the wishful thinking that all his family would turn out to be all humans, but now he understood how naive and willfully ignorant he had been.

He no longer hoped for his family to be all humans, but all wanderers, which wouldn’t be too much to hope for. Wanderers accounted for the majority of monsters. According to the statistics calculated by the Qilin Guild, the ratio between elite monsters and wanderers was roughly 1 to 100.

With the Crimson Tide on the horizon, Gao Yang not only had to prevent others from hurting his family, but also considered the possibility that one or some of his family could turn out to be elite monsters.

His grandmother had shared a room with his late grandfather and witnessed his death, which made her the most likely to be an elite monster.

Thus, Gao Yang took the chance to use Lie Detection on his grandmother, and it was confirmed that she hadn’t lied, that she was benevolent to him.

At that moment, Gao Yang was genuinely thankful for his luck.

...

Gao Yang stayed at home that afternoon and evening, doing his best to act like he always did. Late at night, he spent an hour doing basic physical training in his room. Although what little progress he could make would be nothing to the coming crisis, he had to exhaust all options at hand.

After that, Gao Yang took a shower, and as soon as he lay down on his bed, he received an encoded message from Qilin.

One o’clock in the morning, he put on a mask and a baseball cap before sneaking out through the window, taking a ride to the Blue House Psychiatric Clinic.

Outside of Qilin, Gao Yang was the first to arrive.

In the next ten minutes, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, and Azure Dragon showed up one after another.

The curtains were drawn in the therapy room, leaving the soft light of the wall lamps to illuminate the space.

Qilin was in his psychiatrist get-up and sitting on the main seat. One hand holding his cane and the other hand adjusting his glasses, he said, “Alright. Let’s start with the group session. Who’s going first?”

“I’ll go first.” Azure Dragon spent more than ten minutes going into the details about what happened in the Snow Nation.

The others didn’t immediately offer comments.

Then Vermilion Bird bowed slightly. “I’ll go next.”

In the next twenty minutes, Vermilion Bird described everything that had happened in Naldives, including the Rune Cave—well, it wasn’t a Rune Cave per se, but Sir Zuo’s Pride Realm.

Again, they refrained from making comments and kept their curiosity in check.

Qilin turned to White Tiger. “Anything you’d like to add?”

“No, Little Xia has made it clear.” White Tiger held onto a thermos and scratched his belly. “You know what’s happened on my end. I helped Brother Azure Dragon carry Sarah’s body to Vermilion Bird for questioning. Then I entered the realm created by Sir Zuo with Vermilion Bird, having a game of Werewolf. After that, I brought the body back. That’s it.”

Qilin nodded before turning to Gao Yang.

Gao Yang said openly, “The second to last night in Naldives, I met a girl called Huai Wei. She was an awakener from 78 years ago with Talent: Time-Space Spirit. I told Vermilion Bird about it.”

“I’ve looked it up,” said Vermilion Bird. “I didn’t find an awakener called Huai Wei.”

“Is time-travel really possible?” White Tiger questioned.

Azure Dragon didn’t say anything. He considered Gao Yang’s words with doubt.

“That’s been proven.” Qilin had a strange smile on his face. “Huai Wei was Alcoholic, whom Surnamed Li and I visited last night.”

“What?” Vermilion Bird and Gao Yang blurted out at the same time.

After a stunned moment, Gao Yang cracked a smile. “I should’ve known. She does have a penchant for drinking. The first time she had beer, she fell in love with it.”

Then Qilin told them about Alcoholic, including what she had found out: the Mist World’s lifespan was only a hundred years long. Then he told them about her death.

Gao Yang was shocked and saddened.

Alcoholic had passed away. However, she had exceeded most awakeners by living to an old age. She must have led an epic life without regret.

And Gao Yang couldn’t quite see the two as one person. The one who passed away was an old woman named Alcoholic, while the one he knew was a girl named Huai Wei.

It was a strange feeling.

The other three Elders were each reeling from varying degrees of shock.

Even Azure Dragon, who had been around for a while, couldn’t help but pinch his brows and sighed. “So even if we overcome the Crimson Tide, humanity only has another two years.”

“Yes.” Qilin’s voice was calm, but with a hint of lament.